Usually representing spirits, ancestors or the primordial couple, these figures were placed in shrines and treated with great respect. Through a wide range of style, scale, belief and function the couples depicted share a timeless, serene equality necessary to the continuity of their societies.

Posts
Thumbs

Discovery Place / Boogertman and Partners

Futuristic and fluid, Discovery’s new global headquarters bring together 5000 employees who were previously housed in four separate buildings. Efficiency and future growth underpin the new workspace, which is the largest new build to date to receive a 5 Star Green Star rating by the Green Building Council South Africa. In line with Discovery’s holistic approach to health, the building was imagi...

Stellenbosch University Faculty of Medicine / MLB Architects

The client for this project was SU's Facilities Management,with the end user being SU’s Faculty of Medicine. The brief called for two 450 seater auditoriums, with break out areas. The budget was tight, the program fast-tracked and siting crucial.

Morvest Headquarters / Anthrop Architects

A campus to serve as the headquarters for the Morvest Business Group is situated adjacent to the Ben Schoeman highway. The client is a rapidly growing holding company requiring a flexible programme to house the various constituent companies and their associated functions. The campus comprises three buildings (two three-storey office buildings and a single-storey training and events centre) orie...

Denis Hurley Centre / Ruben Reddy Architects

Located in the vibrant city centre of Durban, South Africa, a few steps from Warwick Triangle and close to several liberation heritage sites such as the Juma Musjid (Mosque) the Denis Hurley Centre was conceived as a contemporary facility to uplift and serve the community - a welcoming refuge to all, regardless of background, faith or nationality.

La Lucia House / SAOTA

LA Lucia is a dream transformer house. The view from the street is a closed in house with a veiled approach to it that is both secretive and introverted. A certain sagacity of arrival is created by a serious entrance between two milk-wood trees; the cinematic panorama is only revealed as one enters the double-volume hallway. To highlight that moment of connection, the architects clad the ceilin...

House Steyn / Thomas Gouws Architects

The house is situated on a golf course in a residential estate close to Johannesburg in Gauteng, South Africa. The brief called for a contemporary minimalist house that provided security and privacy, while exploiting the golf course views. The site is exposed to extremely windy conditions year-round and protected outdoor living areas were a necessity. A priced collection of antique Cape furnitu...

I-CAT Offices and Warehouse / Earthworld Architects

The Client’s brief was to create a flagship building based on ecological sustainable principles which would showcase their philosophy toward the natural environment. Thus, the design response was a building that would be sustainable on all three levels; ecological, socially and economical. Understanding that these three pillars of sustainability influences one another, the objective was to find...

The Ecomo Home / Pietro Russo

The ecomo home is a compact home designed for modern, simple living in collaboration with nature. The design is based on basic sustainable, green design principles. The ecomo home offers a low-maintenance, modern, well-designed green housing alternative.

House in Camps Bay / Luis Mira Architects

The house is used as a holiday home by a single person, who often invites guest to stay. It needed to be a space that could be used as a controlled studio with the feeling of being open, as well as to be able to morph into private and individual spaces when the house is full of visitors.

Old Mutual Central Campus / Perry + Anderson Architecture

This project was to create a new business school for the Old Mutual Investment Group. Careful consideration of the existing campus of buildings at the head office of Old Mutual in Cape Town saw the positioning of the new training facility in an underutilized courtyard and existing ground floor office space.

House Gauché / Earthworld Architects and Interiors

The House is situated in one of Pretoria's oldest Golf Estates, which has already been extensively developed. Our client was particularly open-minded in buying one of the last open plots in the estate, an extremely rocky piece of ground not many would see opportunity in.

Nettleton 195 / SAOTA

Our client purchased the site, after we had completed an initial Design Concept for the previous property owner. Our client loved the design, and the visual direction the home was going, and accordingly shaped his brief around the design he saw.

The Midden Garden Pavilion / Metropolis Design

The project forms part of a larger renovation to a freestanding villa located high up on the slopes of the Vlakkenberg. The clients required a pavilion within their extensive and beautiful garden, from which to appreciate the natural landscape around them.

Tree House / Van Der Merwe Miszewski Architects

Trees are precious in Africa. They provide shelter for the elders at meeting time, for school children in the midday heat, for all to shield against the unrelenting elements. In a sense the tree has become iconic, almost mythical.

Rooiels Beach House / Elphick Proome Architects

This vacation beach house located near Cape Town, South Africa, is carefully crafted to respond directly to the brief from the client, a maverick businessman from Johannesburg. Primary requirements were to create an extraordinary living experience, conceptually capture the client’s brief to create a single space vacation house and fully embrace the remarkable seaside location.

Tree House / Malan Vorster Architecture Interior Design

Malan Vorster have been involved with previous projects on this tree-rich property, and were commissioned to design a small contemporary house to complement the existing collection of buildings - spatially organised around a modern interpretation of the Cape Werf.

Bridge House / Van Der Merwe Miszewski Architects

The site consists of three separate but adjacent sites forming one entity, located in the heart of Higgovale, which lies upslope from the Cape Town CBD and below Table Mountain. All three sites are traversed by a “DONGA” – a dry river course. The overall site, roughly triangular, is bounded by Glen Avenue to the South and East, public open space (a Pine forest) to the West and houses to the Nor...

OVD 525 / Three14 Architects

OVD525 is a private home located in Bantry Bay, Cape Town. The steep mountainside site boasts un-disturbed views over Cape Town’s Atlantic Seaboard and Robben Island to the north and north-east. The city is seen in the distance towards the east and the iconic Lion’s Head Mountain towers over the house from the south. Western views take advantage of spectacular ocean-sunsets.

Anura Vineyard New Events Venue / Inhouse Brand Architects

Anura Vineyards, a breathtaking wine farm situated in the Cape Winelands, has revealed ‘spankingly’ modern interiors for its new events venue. Nestled between the towns of Paarl and Stellenbosch, this venue provides more than just idyllic surroundings and award-winning wines – it offers a contemporary design direction in a landscape usually associated with traditional architecture…

Sasol Place / Paragon Architects

The new Sasol corporate office on Katherine Street brings together all 6000 staff members from its eleven satellite offices into one office space. The building leaps the boundary of the commercial edge of Sandton to hover as a floating glass box above an indigenous parkland.

Nelson Mandela Children's Hospital / Sheppard Robson + John Cooper Architecture + GAPP + Ruben Reddy Architects

The Nelson Mandela Children's Hospital in Johannesburg is the first purpose built paediatric hospital in South Africa. The commission for the hospital, provided by the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund was won by John Cooper Architecture with Sheppard Robson, in an international competition. The design is one of four dedicated children’s hospitals on the African continent, creating a much needed f...

Bosjes Chapel / Steyn Studio

The new chapel, set within a vineyard in South Africa, is designed by South-African born Coetzee Steyn of London-based Steyn Studio. Its serene sculptural form emulates the silhouette of surrounding mountain ranges, paying tribute to the historic Cape Dutch gables dotting the rural landscapes of the Western Cape. Constructed from a slim concrete cast shell, the roof supports itself as each undu...

American International School Johannesburg Aquatics Center / Flansburgh Architects

The American International School of Johannesburg is an independent school in South Africa serving students grades PreK-12. The school’s main campus in Johannesburg is sited on 58-acres of land located on the city’s northern edge. Formerly a horse farm, the school’s original buildings recall their rural roots in their building materials; white brick used to construct existing buildings remember...

Heideveld Primary School / Meyer and Associates

The design of the new Heideveid Primary school was informed by the need to keep an existing school on the site fully operational until the new building was finished. This constraint, together with the relatively small scale of the site, gave rise to a compact and simple plan form.

House 02 Hyde Park / Daffonchio & Associates Architects

The house is set on a secluded, tranquil stand surrounded by established trees. The main house consists of 2 wings: the living wing and the bedroom wing. Both wings have long, low roofs which appear to float over and past them. These roofs are supported on external steel posts, as all of the walls stop short of the ceiling, with clerestory windows on top of all internal and external walls. The ...

Phase 2 University of South Africa (UNISA) Building / Michelle Sandiland Architects

Beyond the world-famous horizon line of Table Mountain and beyond the equally familiar horizon line of the Hottentots Holland mountain range is a context that hardly ever receives a positive mention in the press, let alone the architectural press. This sandy and windswept wasteland is euphemistically known as the Cape Flats. Parow, where the Phase 2 University of South Africa (UNISA) building i...

Refilwe Business Node Upgrades / Holm Jordaan Architects and Urban Designers

Refilwe nodal transformation forms part of an urban network of upgrades supported by the Neighbourhood Development Partnerships Grant, National Treasury, in the Metsweding area, City of Tshwane. This upgrade albeit a small and humble urban intervention, serves as an example of a local community taking great pride in the renewal of public space.

House 01 Hyde Park / Daffonchio & Associates Architects

This house has been designed to be highly flexible and adapt to the owners' changing needs. The house has two skins throughout: the sliding glass windows and doors, and the sliding timber shutters, which enable the owners to constantly transform the look and feel of the spaces to suit their activities, the weather and the time.

Pearl Bay Residence / Gavin Maddock Design Studio

This contemporary home is located on South Africas’ West coast, 90kms north of Cape Town. Taking full advantage of the ocean views and responding to the coastal dune context, Gavin Maddock describes it as ‘a spectacular site’. The brief called for a ‘modern’ house with ocean views and observance of a budget, including the standard accommodation requirements. With the front dune sitting up a lit...

John Brown Media South Africa Workspace / Inhouse Brand Architects

Led by Inhouse Brand Architects’ director, Aidan Hart, the re-design of John Brown Media’s premises aims to increase connectivity among staff members while aligning the physical environment with John Brown’s charged work ethic and creative output. The new space incorporates John Brown’s corporate colour, teal, which is uplifted by vibrant yellow, and expands on the company’s informal bird theme...